ANNA GAREEVA 2011 OVERVIEW: Russian

Constructivism was a modernist avant-garde art movement, originating in Russia around the 1920s. With the historical political context of the 1917 October Revolution, there was an emerging need for ‘new’ art that engaged with the proletariat class, creating a ‘new’ way of life. Artists accepted that a revolutionary art was an inevitable accompaniment to the prominent social struggles, which defined the birth of Constructivism. The aim was to bring function and purpose to art; create art that was designed to benefit and serve the Soviet people. Through this utopian aspiration Constructivists believed their art would bring order and consonance to society, with the reduction of figurative aesthetics in favour of ‘absolute’ shapes 1.

The movement was influenced by the geometricity of Kasimir Malevich’s Suprematism, and the Futurist celebration of technology. Industrial materials were embraced by the Constructivists; metals, wood, wire and glass, which predominantly composed their sculptures. Furthermore, Russian Constructivism influenced and was influenced by the German architecture of the Staatliches Bauhaus and the Dutch, De Stijl. All schools were concerned with ideals of harmony and the reduction to the essentials of form and colour, ultimately leading to universality and purity.

Constructivism can be traced through the three stages of its artistic metamorphosis, starting with the fine arts, to architecture and design. The first stage, later defined as the ‘laboratory period,’ 2 proliferated in oil paintings and reliefs. Constructivist Liubov’ Popova explains that these artworks “are pictorial and must be considered only as a series of preparatory experiments for concrete material constructions.”3 Some of these ‘material constructions’ were the works of Vladimir Tatlin, with his counter-reliefs. These works signified a progression from conventional easel painting which developed to manifest large-scale in the mergence of the official schools of art in Russia with machine production, architecture and the applied arts 4. The Russian avant-garde art transformed from paintings and sculpture to works that fully assimilated into common life, from Tatlin’s architectural plans to the graphic and furniture design of El Lissitzky. This shift from fine arts to the

1 J. M. Nash, Cubism, and Constructivism. (New York: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc, 1978), 54.

2 The art historian Andrei Nakov used the term “laboratory period” to define the aesthetically abstract experimentations undertaken by early Constructivists. Although the works were non-utilitarian, Nakov believed them to ultimately set up a framework for future functional art.

3 Margarite Tupitsyn and Vicent Todoli, Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism, (Londong: Tate Pub. 2009), 102.

4 This was the establishment of Vkhutemas (The Higher Art and Technical Studios) in Russia. It was a state art and technical school founded in 1920 to replace the former schools of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and the Stroganov School of Applied Arts. 1 ANNA GAREEVA 2011

Liubov’ Popova, Pictorial Architectonics, 1918. Oil on canvas,

Liubov’ Popova, Space-Force Construction, 1921. Oil and wood dust on plywood.

2 ANNA GAREEVA 2011 factory and mass production is particularly elucidated by Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo, “The plumb-line in our hands, eyes precise as a ruler, in a spirit as taut as a compass ... we construct our work as the universe constructs its own, as an engineer constructs his bridges, as a mathematician his formula of the orbits.”5

The laboratory period not only signified the initial investigation into Constructivism, but also a shift from Malevich’s Suprematism. Popova’s work elucidates influences from previous movements, overarching Constructivist ideas, and the aesthetics that defined the transition into three- dimensional constructions. Popova’s work spanned many art movements6 and with her Constructivist paintings, Pictorial Architectonics (1918) and Space-Force Construction (1921) the simultaneous influence of, and break from, Suprematism is evident. Both works are indebted to Malevich with their abstractness and vibrancy. With Pictorial Architectonics, however, Popova destabalised the visual economy of Suprematism by partially liquifying and melting the hard edges of geometric shapes commonly seen with Malevich.7 The work explores form, colour, gradation, and line. Popova’s paintings had “more force and concreteness than Malevich and already [exploited] line as the element to define forms and map the path of correlation between them.”8 Similarly, the resonance in form and direction, the complicated interpenetration of shapes, mirrores the Futurist work of Balla and Boccioni. Thus, although the painting pertains elements akin to other movements, it also differentiates in the way Popova drove line and shape together; blending the two, producing transparencies. This signified the preeminent aim of early non-utilitarian Constructivism; the exploration of space. Pictorial Architectonics is composed of basic and essential entities, quadrilateral planes, and remains an open spacial composition of multiple perspectives. It displays a dynamic interaction between non-objective planes, which delivers a dramatisation of a tensile space, resulting in a vivid “rhomboidal distortion.”9 The blended, translucent lines and partial areas of planes explore the prolongation of space and the hidden space.

The work Space-Force Construction, significantly differs to the former, it is jarred by numerous concurrent focal points developed from the intersection of line and plane. This, however,

5 Pevsner and Gabo’s ‘Realistic Manifesto,’ issued in Moscow on 5 August 1920. Translation by Naum Gabo was first published in Gabo: Constructions, Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, (London: Lund Humphries; Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press, 1957)

6 She experimented in Cubo-futurism, Suprematism and Constructivism.

7 Margarite Tupitsyn and Vicent Todoli, Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism, (London: Tate Pub. 2009), 14.

8 Ibid.

9 Andrei B. Nakov, “Liubov Popova 1889-1924,” Russian Constructivism: “Laboratory Period,” (Bromley: BOSP PRINT 1975), no page specified in catalogue. 3 ANNA GAREEVA 2011

Vladimir Tatlin, Corner Counter-Relief, 1915. Wood, metal, wire, cable. Whereabouts unknown.

Vladimir Tatlin, model for Monument to the Third International, 1919-20. Wood, metal, glass. 4 ANNA GAREEVA 2011 emphasises the materiality of the partial shapes, the triangles, quadrilaterals and spheric projections. The dissonance of planes and colours, and the fluctuating tension between linear and painterly matters, produces dynamism, an investigation into fragmented space, thus still embodying Constructivism’s value of space. This painting symbolises a partial transition from traditional canvas painting; Popova worked on plywood and incorporated wood dust as a medium. The inclusion of industrial materials provides a visual vocabulary that denotes the technological influences, “real materials from the world of modern technology,”10 that were embraced by Constructivism. Popova believed this material property of texture, combined with colour, defined “the content of painterly surfaces” and provided “the sum of energy” that created space.11

Volume was another aspect, secondary to space, that was “built from the intersection of the plane ... in space,”12 as evident in Pictorial Architectonics. Constructivists were ultimately concerned with “solving the problem of painterly and volumetric space.”13 This was realised in the unity of physical sculptural volumes and “modulations of colour as a painterly surface,” first emerging in the works of Tatlin, which denoted a progression from the laboratory period. In 1921 Popova abandoned painting with Lenin’s introduction of the New Economic Policy, embracing the growing utilitarian stance of Constructivism, channeling her talents to textile, stage and costume design, avoiding the threat of her art becoming a material object of commodity.

The transmutation of Constructivism towards a new category of art, three-dimensional construction, was largely pioneered by Tatlin, the ‘father of Constructivism.’ Tatlin impacted on the establishment of Constructivism with his ‘corner-counter reliefs,’ that were made from contemporary media, and “incorporated real space within themselves, fusing their environment and expressing the spatial and dynamic aspects of twentieth-century urbanism and technology as perceived by the [Constructivists].”14 As with Corner Counter-Relief (1915), fabricated from wood, sheet metal, wire and cables, an industrial aesthetic is prominent, as is the continued exploration of space15. The work connotes a discontentment with the static flat wall support of painting, also displaying an architectural component with the corner installation. Constructivists felt that material

10 Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1983), 74.

11 Margarite Tupitsyn and Vicent Todoli, Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism, (London: Tate Pub. 2009), 15.

12 Andrei B. Nakov, “Liubov Popova 1889-1924,” Russian Constructivism: “Laboratory Period,” (Bromley: BOSP PRINT 1975), 45.

13 Ibid.

14 Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1983), 14.

15 The exploration of space was, as discussed, important in the laboratory period. 5 ANNA GAREEVA 2011 was an innate segment of ‘construction,’ and thus was related to physical objects rather than painting.

Tatlin exploited the inherent properties of the materials employed, strategically continuing lines and shapes through the constructed interrelationships between the wooden and metal forms. The juxtaposition between surface textures, smooth and course, mimics Popova’s paintings, however, the physical dimension of the work, suspended between, and reaching out of two walls, extends the study of space, producing an active interconnection with the surroundings. The relief merges with its immediate surroundings, fusing the wall and sculpture, epitomising the growing Constructivist idea of artistic function. The wall is unified to almost provide extra planes. Tatlin had a strong, industrial approach to the work, which propelled the Constructivist view of removing art from its privileged position as a perplexing cultural form, and integrating it into modern Soviet, and industry dominated, life. As Valentina Khodasevich, an artist at the time, accounts that Tatlin, “used a saw, an axe, a chisel, wire, nails [...] He chopped, planed, cut.”16 Tatlin fully abandoned classical sculptural materials and techniques, projecting his new constructive language.

Corner Counter-Relief was influenced by the three-dimensional assemblage of Russian Orthodox icons, their particular embellishments of precious metals and stones and glass-box framing which completely deferred the religious artworks from the conventional painting. The fact that the relief is hung in a corner, the traditional place of an icon in the household, further supports Tatlin’s purpose of assimilating “Art into Life.”17 Tatlin’s context informed his multimedia practice and yearning to build away from the surface. A continuation of the study of space in this work is seen by the influence of another avant-garde Russian movement, Rayism, that focused on the intersection and reflection of rays, which here is signified through the concentrated lines, fragmented objects and the space between planes.

From ‘construction,’ Constructivism moved on to the expanded domains of architecture and design suited to sustaining a revolutionary society18. In the words of Vladimir Rodchenko, the laboratory phase was a “quest ... to the design of actual things, i.e. to industrial manufacture, in which the artist

16 Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1983), 14.

17 Tatlin’s own slogan encapsulating Constructivism’s intent on utility in art, as well as art in the service of political and social revolution.

18 Stephen Bann’s emphasises that, “in Russia the development of Constructivism led very swiftly beyond the traditional genres of the plastic arts into the wider fields of planning and design for a revolutionary society.” This is also heavily linked to Tatlin’s own key phrase, “Life into Art,” which places importance on integrating art practically into everyday life. Stephen Bann, The tradition of Constructivism, (New York: Viking Press 1974), 208 6 ANNA GAREEVA 2011 will become a designer of physical objects.”19 This is explicitly depicted in Tatlin’s plan and model of the Monument to the Third International (1919-20). Tatlin designed the tower of metal, conical spirals and a skeletal framework, appearing as burrowing out of the ground, alluding to the Communist and Futurist mores of advancing forward. Within the complex open lattice structure were to be suspended four geometric rooms. The rooms were to have “different, harmonically corresponding forms,” and were to house, “legislative assemblies, ... the International Executive Committee, [...] an information services desk” and a radio broadcast service.20 Thus, it can be deduced that the ‘monument’ embodied the socially useful purposes of Constructivism; Tatlin intended for there to be a telegraphic office, a large propaganda screen and floodlights for delivering sky messages and news; it was a means of communication for the international proletariat. Planned as an agitational and propaganda centre, the Monument to the Third International expressed dynamism of a socialist society, whilst designed as a purely utilitarian architectural artwork. In the words of Russian Constructivist artist El Lissitzsky, even the materials of the Monument mirrored Communist ideals; “Iron [...] strong like the will of the proletariat. Glass [...] clear like its conscience.”21

Influences on the Monument, from Tatlin’s personal context and other architecture and art, can be drawn, deepening the value of the artwork as a proliferation and manifestation of Constructivism. When young, Tatlin was a sailor, and as Kenstutis Paul Zygas suggests, the structures of the oil derricks and the skeleton masts of ships, Tatlin would have encountered, may have been influential upon the design of the Monument22. This impact of marine architecture actively expresses Tatlin’s incline towards the machine. Further allusions are exemplified in the aesthetics of the Eiffel tower and the futurist work of Boccioni, such as his Development of a Bottle in Space (1912). The Eiffel tower can be readily linked to the Monument through its skeletal, metal framework and pervading arches. Boccioni’s sculpture can too, be related to Tatlin’s, visually, as well as conceptually, with both artist’s obvious exploration of space23. The monument, however, was never built. Tatlin’s Constructivist utopian ideologies were diminished in the realities of the shortage of materials and funds. The coming of the Stalin government further interrupted the lifespan of Constructivism with its dictated Socialist Realism. Nevertheless, Tatlin actively took on the role of a Constructivist ‘artist-engineer,’

19 Margarite Tupitsyn and Vicent Todoli, Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism, (London: Tate Pub. 2009), 112.

20 N. Punin, ‘Tour de Tatline,’ Veshch’, No. 1/2, 1922; reprinted in Andersen, Vladimir Tatlin, p. 57.

21 Christina Lodder, “Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International,” Russian Constructivism, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1983), 61.

22 K. P. Zygas, “Tatlin’s Tower Reconsidered,” Architectural Association Quarterly 8, No. 2, 1976, pp. 22.

23 Tatlin considered the space of the geometric rooms suspended within a non-solid trellis, and the dynamic space of man in relation to his environment. 7 ANNA GAREEVA 2011 and developed an iconic Constructivist artwork, merging art and life through industry and architecture.

In Constructivism, there was a shift into the construction of a different type of design exercise. It was defined by a movement of a new perspective towards the art object.24 The architectural planning was readily accompanied by the design of furniture. Further, Constructivist artists designed clothing, costumes, theatrical sets, book covers and propaganda. El Lissitzky’s work completely dissipates boundaries between art and life. His furniture and graphic designs encompassed the New Bolshevik government’s view of the artist as an agitator, as a “transmitter of the socialist idea ... as a creator of the new socialist reality.”25

Lissitzky’s Seat designed for the International Fur Trade Exhibition (1930) and his poster, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919) were both designed for mass production, a utopian conception of expanding forward into society. It was art created to be seen, used and easily understood by the public, symbolising the amalgamation of art and life on a large scale. Lissitzky’s Seat was an object expressive of the contemporary Soviet living conditions, embedded in functionalism. It was constructed from two sections that could easily be dismantled for transportation and reassembled; the back consisted of one piece of wood, as did the seat itself. It was designed free of complex joints and ease of use was of paramount importance. Rationalisation and standardisation were epitome of Lissitzky’s furniture designs. Cut from one piece of plywood, an abundant material in Russia, Lissitzky designed the seat for cheap production, addressing Russia’s resource shortages. The simple minimalism of the seat conveyed Lissitzky’s artistic discourse on “the aesthetic needs of the everyday environment and the expanding potential of mass production.” 26 The formal aspects of the furniture were evidently informed by ‘laboratorial’ artworks that investigated tectonic structure and space, elements that Lissitzky studied during the design process.

Constructivism harnessed the power of the industry and its communist goal was entrenched in the revolutionary task of political propaganda and agitation. One of Lissitzky’s most recognised works, the propaganda lithograph poster, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, encompasses the civil unrest of Russia at the time, the conflict between the Reds, the communists, and Whites, the monarchists. The

24 Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1983), 73. Ideas of P. S. Strakhov, he delivered a lecture entitled ‘Technology and the Beauty of Life.’ He spoke of the relationship between “the aesthetic needs of the everyday environment and the expanding potential of mass production.”

25 Ibid., 47.

26 Ibid., 74. 8 ANNA GAREEVA 2011

El Lissitzky, Seat designed for the International Fur Trade Exhibition, Leipzig, 1930. Wood.

El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919, Lithograph.

9 ANNA GAREEVA 2011 visualisation conveyed is simple and direct, inspired by Suprematism. The graphic quality of the work, the bold, stark shapes of the red wedge shattering the white circle, grasped the public’s attention, concurrently communicating the political message. The contrasting colour in the work, the juxtaposition between white, red and black, as well as the disruption of symmetry, provided an expressive, yet economical effect. This proliferated Lissitzky’s Constructivist theory of function over adornment. The dynamism from the laboratory period is visible with the strong diagonal aesthetics of the piece. Lissitzky’s work not only embodied a function, but actively spoke to those it was aimed at; “appeals to the workers were made on posters stuck up outside the factories. The new geometric shapes appeared on the posters, and a style of writing was created to harmonise with them.”27 Although not all architectural or furniture designs of Constructivism were realised, many designs for propaganda were mass produced.

Through the study of the works of Popova, Tatlin and Lissitzky, the changes within Constructivism can be clearly comprehended. Beginning with abstract paintings and industrially influenced sculptures, metamorphosing to architecture and then to design, Constructivism continuously transformed itself to ultimately reach its artistic utopian, utilitarian aim. This was art that pinnacled in function and purpose, and was devoted to fully assimilating into and embracing common Soviet life.

27 Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, (London: Thames & Hudson 1968), 12. 10